In a typical cellular radio system, wireless terminals communicate via a radio access network (RAN) with one or more core networks. The RAN covers a geographical area which is divided into cell areas, with each cell area being served by a base station. A cell area is a geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the base station at a base station site. The base stations communicate through wireless radio communication channels with wireless terminals within range of the base station subsystems.
Communications for machine-type communication (MTC) wireless terminals is a growing area of communications in radio access networks. Such MTC wireless terminals may be used to provide wirelessly networked sensors, meters, etc. In such applications, MTC wireless terminals may be expected to transmit relatively small amounts of uplink (UL) data relatively infrequently.
Because MTC wireless terminals may be located in areas (e.g., basements) with unfavorable radio conditions, an MTC wireless terminal may have difficulty transmitting and/or receiving communications of a conventional random access procedure.
Approaches described in the Background section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in the Background section are not prior art to the inventive embodiments disclosed in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in the Background section. Therefore, any description contained in the Background section may be moved to the Detailed Description section.